When Covid struck in March 2020, external exams and university choices seemed a long way away. Despite schools’ best efforts at online academic provision, everyone has experienced a departure lounge-like time vortex for over 18 months - sitting eternally in a new environment, wondering when we might finally get out of the pandemic’s holding room.
As scientists learned more about the disease, so our youngsters have had additional information to carry and, by proxy, deal with. “Covid anxiety” is not a defined illness, but it is one from which many are suffering. We have noticed that “transmission guilt” is now a frequent concern: those not yet eligible for vaccination juggle the enjoyment and fulfilment of a new term with knowledge of possible conduction of the virus.
In mitigation, since starting this term, staff members have adopted a new pastoral approach with, so far, a very positive reaction. Having Covid, or knowing someone who has it, is now discussed much more openly and, subsequently, it is seen as more commonplace.
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Of course, the seriousness of the disease is still very much emphasised, but with the reassurance that there is less likelihood of hospitalisation. So many more girls have the shared experience of knowing someone who has had Covid - or perhaps even having experienced it themselves - that they now have their own story to tell and discuss; the common bond (facing the enemy, if you like) is a lot less frightening. With the help of the school’s mental health ambassadors, discussion of guilt or concern is commonplace and encouraged both in and out of the classroom.
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Case management is also much more opening addressed. Until very recently, the mere words “isolation” and “quarantine” were enough to initiate fear and suspicion. However, with the benefit of experience, we are now all able to talk openly about the actual reality of these terms and not have them confined to the horror books, as was previously the case.
Covid vaccination, when the opportunity allows, is both encouraged and celebrated - a positive step to personal and community defence. Girls feel very proud about having “done their bit” and, for the first time, actually feel they are able to contribute to society’s disease defence. Lateral flow tests have, again, become the new norm, with a pervading sense of collective responsibility moving throughout the year groups. As with the some of the early terms in this time of Covid, testing is now routine, just part of a normal school day, everyone pitching in.
Activities have also been adapted, producing a far greater sense of pre-pandemic normality, with Covid restrictions a sideshow rather than the main act. A boarding school is a very sociable place and our weekend events are the highlight of every pupil’s calendar. Drinks are served in the sports pavilion with doors wide open, warm jumpers de rigueur and, while social distancing still occurs, it is discreet and normalised, rather than an awkward abnormality.
Despite our “level zero” restrictions, teenagers keen to stretch their social wings must still consider the implications of having fun. But here again, through discussion and sharing, as children always do, they have established ways of enjoying a good time while not compromising the health of those they hold dear.
There is little positive about the past 18 months of Covid but, as ever, the strength, compassion and sheer sensibility of the next generation never ceases to astound me.
Dorothy MacGinty is headteacher at Kilgraston School in Perthshire, an independent boarding and day school for girls
